Malaysian entrepreneur tunes into Queen Insurance Buildings

THE planned hotel at Bruntwood’s Queen Insurance Buildings in Liverpool is to be run by Tune Hotels, the budget Malaysian operator, according to planning documents.

Subject to planning it will take on around 30,000 sq ft of office space – just under half the site – which has not been occupied since law firm DWF left for St Paul’s Square around three years ago.

Tune, run by entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, has been looking at the Liverpool market for some time and won planning permission in 2011 to convert the upper four floors of 11-17 Parker Street, close to the St John’s Shopping Centre, into a 127-room hotel.

That site was once Reece’s Ballroom and is famous for being the venue of John and Cynthia Lennon’s wedding reception in 1962, but nothing came of the plans. Tune currently has four hotels in London and one in Edinburgh.

The grade II-listed Queen Insurance Buildings stretch across a large plot on the corner of Castle Street and Dale Street and include a Victorian shopping arcade. The hotel will occupy the upper floors on the Castle Street side.

Mr Fernandes established the Malaysian budget airline Air Asia and runs the Caterham F1 Formula One team.